


dreams of april

by oh_fudgecakes



Category: Tokyo Babylon, X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: (I think?), (mostly), Canon Compliant, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, M/M, Secret Identity, Slow Build, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, i dont deserve this i'm crying, oh my god i am a little overwhelmed by how kind people have been to me in the comments, oh yea also subaru doesn't remember their first meeting so theres that, thank you all so much?, that's about it really, the whole premise of this is basically 'how would tb have played out if soulmate au?'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-09-10 22:37:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8942122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_fudgecakes/pseuds/oh_fudgecakes
Summary: A single sentence flows across his wrist in elegant calligraphy, hidden under the soft kid leather of the gloves he is forbidden to remove.  these cherry blossoms are beautiful, are they not? He is sixteen, and his first suitor is not his soulmate. He knows this because they had not met amidst the cherry blossoms like Subaru had always imagined. They had met in a collision at a crowded train station. Seishirou’s first words to him were: oh dear, are you okay?Soulmate AU set in TB canon, in which people are born with the first words their soulmate will say to them printed on their wrists.





	1. part i: for a lack of a better title

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this basically because I've been reading too much soulmate AU in other fandoms, a trope which I am guiltily fond of despite all its clicheness. Being the huge Seisub fan I am, my brain eventually made the connection between that, and the fact that I haven't actually read soulmate AU in the Seisub fandom??? Which is unforgiveable??? And so I set out to write it myself.
> 
> The other reason why I wrote this is because the fandom has been ridiculously quiet and it bothers me. **Please do leave a comment at least saying hi if you're still involved with the fandom.** I'm starting to feel a little like I'm shouting blindly into the void when I'm actually alone on an island that's only two paces wide.
> 
> If you're keen on talking/ranting about Seisub, posting about Seisub, writing about Seisub, or even just headcanoning about Seisub, **please leave your tumblr/send my empty blog an ask so that I can follow you** on the shiny new blog that I made just, specifically for the purpose of gay trash. My user is, aptly, asideoftrashplease. If you post/write/rant about Yuri!!! On Ice, please leave me an ask as well. I am actually up writing precisely because I'm waiting for the season finale.
> 
> I'm hesitant to say this, but **you may also leave me short Seisub writing prompts in my ask.** I do not promise I will write your prompt in a timely manner, or at all for that matter, but I will write it if inspiration hits. I am actually very nervous to offer this, and may close my ask to prompts if it gets overwhelming for me (cough, anxiety), but I would quite like to see more activity in this fandom and am hoping to make some new friends.
> 
> Without further ado, on with the fic!

Subaru had always known that he would meet his most important person in the spring.

A single sentence flows across his wrist in elegant calligraphy, hidden under the soft kid leather of the gloves he is forbidden to remove. _What a pity it is to hide them,_ his Japanese teacher at elementary school had commented wistfully when he’d first come in with them, carrying a letter from the Sumeragi matriarch, _I’d always thought you had exceptionally beautiful words._

Barely anyone he knows now remembers his words, but Subaru remembers it like he remembers the stars in the sky, the moon over the sea, the smell of dew in the morning. The memory of it is burnt into the back of his eyelids like a glimpse of the sun.

_these cherry blossoms are beautiful, are they not?_

Lips pressed against the leather wrist of his glove, he closes his eyes, and dreams of April.  


* * *

  
He meets his first suitor in the month of May, weeks after the last of the blossoms have fallen from their boughs. He is sixteen, and his suitor is not his soulmate. He knows this because they had not met amidst the cherry blossoms like Subaru had always imagined. They had met in a collision at a crowded train station. Seishirou’s first words to him were: _oh dear, are you okay?_

And yet, that does not seem to stop the man.

 _Oh my,_ Hokuto had murmured wickedly the third week he’d shown up at their door with that patient smile of his, _he sure is persistent, isn’t he?_

Subaru could tell that Hokuto liked him already, for the sheer scandal of choosing to pursue someone other than his soulmate. It’s almost blasphemous, rarely heard of, and would certainly raise offence in the more conservative circles of society. In other words, it was _right up_ Hokuto’s alley.

Subaru had thought that Seishirou had no soulmate at first. It happened sometimes. It was often hard for one to accept the lack of a soulmate, and while two blank-wristed individuals could often find companionship in one another, such stories were exceedingly uncommon. The thought of Seishirou being stuck in a situation like that had been deeply painful to Subaru, which was half of why he had initially agreed to keep on seeing the man. The other half could be attributed to his lifelong inability to say no to anyone or anything.

Subaru’s suspicions had been proven wrong in the second month of their acquaintance. A morning at Seishirou’s practice where he’d just finished an surgery, and Subaru had walked in on him changing out his bloody gloves for a clean pair.

The words on his wrist had read: _but, isn’t that person in pain?_

“I—“ he had stammered, mortified to have stolen something so private from the man he was just beginning to consider a friend, “I’m so sorry. I’ll just— I’ll just go.”

The words that Subaru had been born with were exceptionally beautiful words, he knew, because they meant that he would meet his most important person in the spring, when everything was alive and beautiful. He would meet his most important person amidst the fall of flowers, surrounded by beauty and life.

Seishirou, he figured, would not be so lucky.  


* * *

  
“You know, it’s really not something to fuss over,” Seishirou tells him off-handedly over coffee a few days later, “Or at least, it isn’t to me. I don’t care in the slightest that you saw my words.”

Subaru still cannot meet his eye.

“But still,” he flusters, “To have seen something so special and so private to Seishirou-san—“

“It’s not special,” Seishirou cuts in firmly, almost sharply, which takes Subaru by surprise. The hard look softens almost immediately into a flirtatious smile, “And even if it were so special and private, I don’t mind because it’s Subaru-kun.”

Subaru looks down into his tea, disturbed. Seishirou takes a sip of his own coffee. The cafe they are in is well-known for its coffee, but Subaru tries to avoid caffeine when he can. Grandmother had always said it was an addictive substance. _Tea has caffeine in it too,_ Hokuto would sigh if she were here and privy to his thoughts, but Grandmother drinks tea too, so Subaru figures that it can’t be that bad.

“What’s wrong?”

Subaru startles, looking at up his companion. Seishirou wears a patient smile as always.

“Nothing,” he says. Seishirou raises a brow, and he sighs, “I just— I don’t understand. You have a soulmate and that person isn’t me. I have a soulmate and that person isn’t you. We weren’t meant for each other, Seishirou-san, so why…?”

The patient smile melts away into sobriety.

“I see,” Seishirou says, almost uncharacteristically serious.

He appears to consider his next words very carefully. Subaru waits for him to continue, knowing somewhere deep down that this will be important, though he is not yet sure why or how.

“I don’t,” Seishirou finally continues, “much believe in the concept of soulmates.”

If Hokuto were here, she would probably propose marriage on the spot. That one sentence teeters on the verge of blasphemy, and Subaru can’t help but look discreetly over his shoulder to see if anyone had overheard Seishirou’s candid opinion. No one is looking, and so he turns back to his companion, leaning in close.

“But—“ he begins, at a loss for words, “But— your words— If you don’t think that soulmates exist, then how do you explain that we are all born with them? I mean, I know some believe that our words are just random words, but that doesn’t explain how people still continue to meet people whose first words match exactly those on their wrists. What are the chances of that? I guess I don’t— I just don’t understand, Seishirou-san.”

Seishirou just laughs.

“That’s not what I meant,” he corrects gently, “The fact that there is someone out there whose first words to me will match those on my wrist, who is deemed by some higher power and by society as a whole to be the one meant ‘just for me’— I believe that that is true. I _know_ that that is true, because I have already met that person.”

Subaru starts, surprised.

“You—“ he says numbly, “You’ve already met your soulmate.”

“Yes,” Seishirou admits, before continuing gently, patiently, “But Subaru-kun, I don’t believe in accepting that person as the person meant ‘just for me’, just because everyone says it’s so, just because something I was born with says it’s so. I don’t believe in _that_ concept of soulmates. I believe in choice. We should all have the freedom to choose who were meant to be with. Wouldn’t that make any relationship even more meaningful? That you chose freely to be with one another, rather than being together just because some higher power says that you ought to be?”

It feels for a disconcerting moment like his heart shifts out of place. Subaru’s hand flies up to his chest, eyes widening. He’s not sure what it is that he’s feeling, and that scares him. This perspective of Seishirou’s is something so alien and foreign to him it’s almost as if Seishirou had told him that cherry blossoms didn’t bloom in April after all. Birds fly, flowers bloom, leaves wither in the winter, and soulmates were meant for each other. That’s just— the way things _were,_ the way things would _always_ be.

“That person you’ve chosen,” Subaru begins shakily, in lieu of an actual answer, “That person is me?”

A moment, and then Seishirou just smiles. The answer is implied.  


* * *

  
Seishirou continues to ferry him to and from jobs, to take him out for lunch and dinner, and sometimes to see attractions he’d never really have gone to see on his own. Of course Hokuto encourages it, of course she does, particularly after Subaru tells her about Seishirou’s opinion on soulmates. He eyes the words on her wrist, _because I wanted to see you,_ faint and grey like ash, and knows it means she will never meet her soulmate. Her soulmate is probably already dead, had probably died when they were nine. The color had changed the day he had returned from Tokyo, and she had started wearing a ribbon over it the same day that he had begun wearing his gloves.

Barely anyone remembers their words now, but they remember their own, and they remember each other’s. There had been a morning when they were fourteen and Hokuto had crawled into his bed to shake him awake, almost vibrating with excitement.

 _I met my soulmate,_ she’d told him in an exuberant whisper, _I met my soulmate last night._

His gaze had flickered down to the ribbon on her wrist— black, as custom dictated, the color of mourning for those who would never meet their soulmates, but Hokuto had not noticed.

 _I met him in a dream,_ she had whispered, rolling onto her back with a dreamy smile on her face, _and he was everything that I had ever dreamed of._

They’d lain there in silence for the longest time, Subaru afraid to say anything and also unsure of what to say, until his sister had spoken again.

 _You know,_ she’d said, _all my life, everyone has expected me to live in mourning just because of the color of my words. I’m not allowed to be happy or loud or excited about anything, just because I have a black ribbon on my wrist. Except, they were wrong. I found that out last night. They were all wrong. Screw what all those old geezers think about propriety. I’ll mourn when I’m dead. These words are ours, not anybody else’s, so why should they get a say in what we choose to do with the words we were born with?_

Subaru does not know whether she really had met her soulmate in a dream, but he keeps his doubts to himself. If she’s chosen to defy the mourning conventions, if believing that she’s met her soulmate will make her happy, he will not say anything to take that away from her.

“Hey,” his sister says in the present, dragging him back from his rumination, “What do you _really_ think about Sei-chan?”

They are in the middle of preparing dinner. Or rather, Hokuto is in the middle of preparing dinner, and Subaru is going to help by laying the table and then keeping out of her way. The table is laid, and now he’s moved his work over to the living room so that he won’t trip her up in his clumsy attempts to help.

“He’s nice,” he says vaguely, absently, used by now to her unpredictable trains of thoughts and sudden pivots of conversation, “Patient, gentle, smart—“

“Not to mention tall and handsome,” Hokuto cuts in, “And those shoulders of his…“

 _“Nee-_ san!” Subaru hisses, scandalised, but Hokuto only laughs.

“I think he’d make a good soulmate.“

“He’s not my soulmate, nee-san,” Subaru reminds her.

Hokuto sighs.

“Well, yes, but if you’d just give him the chance—“

“He’s _not my soulmate,_ nee-san,” Subaru repeats again, a little confused now, and Hokuto falls silent.

The silence continues for long enough that Subaru looks up from his paperwork, only to meet her conflicted stare. That odd look of conflict smooths out immediately to something patient and forgiving, and also a little sad.

“Subaru,” Hokuto murmurs, “What exactly is it that you expect a soulmate is?”

Subaru blinks, taken aback.

“Nee-san, we all know what a soulmate is,” he says slowly, unsurely, “A soulmate is a special someone meant just for us.”

“No, I mean in your own words,” Hokuto explains, sounding somewhat exasperated, “What is a soulmate to _you?_ What does _Sumeragi Subaru_ expect out of a soulmate? What will _Sumeragi Subaru_ do when he meets his soulmate?”

“I—“ Subaru begins, before he falls silent, confused. “We’ll get married, I suppose?” the answer comes out sounding more like a question than he’d have liked, “We’ll have children to continue to the family legacy. We’ll both have someone who we can get along with to come home to at the end of a long day.”

Hokuto just stares at him for a long moment, something like disappointment in her eyes, and Subaru has no idea why.

“Is that really all that you want?” she probes, almost desperately.

“That’s exactly what’s supposed to happen, isn’t it?” Subaru returns, bewildered, “That’s what people do after they find their soulmates.”

Hokuto just stares for a moment longer, before she goes back to dicing the radishes with a sigh. After a short silence, Subaru realises that she isn’t going to continue the argument, and turns his attention back to his paperwork. The conversation ends there.  


* * *

  
But the thought does not.  


* * *

  
He dreams often of April. One of those dreams is a recurring nightmare. Cherry blossoms against a pitch sky, and rain that comes down red from its branches. In this dream, his soulmate is a faceless man who speaks of death, and pain, and blood. In this dream, he is only a child.

“Subaru-kun.”

The voice comes to him, quiet and distant.

“Subaru-kun, wake up.”

Someone is shaking him gently awake.

“It’s all just a bad dream.”

When he opens his eyes, it’s to the sight of Seishirou leaning over his bed. Except— the surface he is lying on is hard, and his pillow is a little firmer than he remembers his pillow being. He is also staring straight out of a full wall of windows overlooking Tokyo, and although the view from his bedroom is pretty good, it’s not _this_ good.

It takes him a moment longer to realise that he is in the special observation deck of Tokyo Tower, and his pillow is actually Seishirou’s thigh.

Seishirou takes his sudden flurry of flailing with surprising grace.

They’d been locked in, Subaru remembers, after a job at the tower he’d stayed behind to complete. Seishirou had stayed with him, and they had talked down the upset spirit of a woman together. Despite himself, a smile comes unbidden to his lips at the memory. He has nothing but respect for the man, but he still couldn’t help but be impressed at the way Seishirou had handled the situation.

He looks up at the gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Are you alright?” Seishirou asks, “I’m sorry to wake you, but your sleep did not look at all restful.”

Subaru smiles up at him.

“I was just having a bad dream,” he assures the man, “One that I’ve been having a lot lately.”

He’s had that same dream more and more as he grew older, as he began to use his powers more often. HIs sister attributes it to stress from his job. Since he has no real opinion on the matter, he is inclined to believe her.

“A recurring nightmare?” Seishirou prods, concerned, “What about?”

Subaru shrugs, offering the man a sheepish grin.

“Just a stress dream probably,” he brushes it off, “Sometimes I dream about of meeting my soulmate as a child, except its not as happy as I’ve been led to believe it’ll be, and it’s a little creepy too. Honestly, though, it’s a little bizarre. I mean, only children still believe that there are corpses buried under cherry trees, right?”

Subaru chuckles self-deprecatingly. A beat later, he realises that Seishirou is not laughing with him. There is an oddly serious expression on the man’s face.

“How often do you have this dream?”

Subaru blinks.

“Ah,” he begins unsurely, “I’ve been having it more often the older that I get, especially since I started taking on jobs. It’s probably the stress, Seishirou-san, it’s nothing to fuss over at all.”

It takes a moment before Seishirou’s smile slides securely back into place, but once it does, he lays a palm atop Subaru’s head.

“You _do_ work yourself too hard, don’t you?” he sighs fondly, before the smile turns a little mischievous, “Perhaps if I sang you to sleep like a lover, it would ease the nightmares.”

The heat rises so sharply to Subaru’s face that it almost makes him dizzy.

“Seishirou-san!” he whispers, laughing nervously, “Please don’t joke around like that.”

“But I’m serious, Subaru-kun,” Seishirou laughs in return, “Can you not be persuaded of how serious I am about you?”

Subaru turns away to hide his burning cheeks, pressing the cool leather of his gloves to them. Seishirou’s laughter quiets behind him.

“Ah,” he sighs, somewhat remorsefully, “I’m being too forward again, aren’t I? I apologise. Would you prefer that I tone it down a little?”

Subaru gives a tiny nod, still turned away.

“Yes please.”

Seishirou chuckles.

“Alright then, it’s a promise.”

An extended finger emerges into his field of vision, and he turns a little to entwine his own with it.

“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Seishirou sings quietly, and Subaru can’t help but laugh at the unexpected childishness of that, “Eat a thousand needles if I lie.”

“Seishirou-san,” he chuckles, “Only children do that!”

“You make me feel young again,” Seishirou replies without hesitation, and Subaru feels his cheeks burn again even as the man’s hand flies up to his mouth, “Oh dear, I’m breaking my promise _already,_ aren’t I? What _shall_ I do with myself?”

“I think the real question is, where are we going to find the thousand needles you promised to eat,” Subaru retorts before he can really think about it.

Seishirou’s eyes widen, but before Subaru can take his careless words back in panic, the man has burst out into surprised laughter. It is somehow more genuine than anything Subaru has ever heard from him, and Subaru’s heart shifts out of place again for a disconcerting second.

Later, they settle against one of the pillars of the deck, pressed together shoulder to hip and looking out over Tokyo in all her glittering, scintillating glory. Subaru is faintly surprised when Seishirou begins to hum, very quietly. He has a good singing voice. _Perfect for incantations,_ Subaru finds himself thinking in a half-asleep blur, as his eyes slide closed, as his head falls senselessly to Seishirou’s shoulder, _Seishirou does have a little of the Art._

Something that feels like a spell washes over him as a large hand covers his face, and he sinks immediately into a deep sleep.

He dreams again of April, and this time, he does not dream of blood.


	2. part ii: in which everyone is pro-choice and anti-establishment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, I have revised the estimated chapter count. To be honest, it may get extended further depending on how the next chapter goes. I just dislike putting a '?' for the chapter count because I feel like I should at least have a rough plan for how long my fics will be. When I don't, it all gets a little out of hand.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for the overwhelming response to the last chapter. I have been so blown away by everyone who took the chance to comment, especially those who took the effort to comment in English when it wasn't a language they were the most comfortable in.

“Have you thought about it?” Hokuto quietly asks him one day, back turned as she dices the tofu for the miso soup, “About what a soulmate means to you?”

The thought _had_ lingered in his mind longer than he had liked. When he’d gone back to Kyoto in November, he’d even gone so far as to ask Grandmother about it. He hadn’t liked the way she’d looked at him— as if she’d been… _wary_.

 _A soulmate,_ she had said, very slowly, _is a special someone meant just for you. You know this, Subaru-san._

He’d been strangely disappointed by the answer, but had let it go at that.

Hokuto, though, has never let go of _anything_ in her life. He can personally attest to that. Her tenacity is second to no one he's ever met— except perhaps Seishirou. Seishirou is less pushy about it however.

“So,” she prods, “Have you?”

A _lot_ less pushy.

“I don’t know what you expect from me, _nee-san,”_ he says quietly, tone coming as close as it ever will to upset, “what is it that you want me to say?”

“Why does it matter what I want?” Hokuto snaps back.

An awkward silence falls, broken only by the furious chopping of Hokuto’s knife against the board. He can always tell when she’s angry because she telegraphs her emotions so clearly. That doesn’t mean that he understands why she feels the way she does at all. Their disagreements over _this_ matter, in particular, has always puzzled Subaru to no end. The ongoing disagreement is no exception.

“If you never learn to want something for yourself,” Hokuto bites out, back turned, “how will you ever learn to be different from what everyone else wants?”

“I don’t need to be different,” Subaru protests, “What’s wrong with being like everyone else?”

With one last violent chop of the knife, Hokuto sets it decisively down.

“That’s not what I said.”

 

* * *

  

There had been a girl in elementary school. He doesn’t remember her name, but he remembers her words.

As a child, Subaru had had precious little friends. He’d never quite had the time that other children did, crippled as he was by the responsibilities of being clan-head. Combined with his natural shyness, that often meant that he did not have the chance to talk to many other children inside _or_ outside of school.

She had come to him in the rain when he’d been beaten and bruised, in pain, and had wordlessly given him her handkerchief to clean the blood off his scraped knees. He hadn’t talked much, and neither had she. Yet, they had silently become friends.

He doesn’t remember her name anymore, but he remembers her words.

They had met in the monsoon in the rain and the wet, but when the summer rain eventually turned into autumn, they would go to the park after school to feed the pigeons. The downy feathers would come gently down and make her sneeze. Not flowers— no, but similar. The first time she had spoken out loud to him, he had been disappointed to find that they weren’t a match.

 _Could you pass the red pencil,_ she had said, very quietly, during arts and craft, and he’d responded with an automatic: _okay._ In retrospect, he had probably imagined the disappointment mirrored on her face. They’d fallen out in the spring before he’d graduated elementary school. Those are the words he remembers best of her.

 _I hate you,_ she had said, in the fall of feathers and flowers. _You’re not normal. You’re not like everyone else. You’re_ weird.

He wakes up, and is surprised to find that her words still hurt.

 

* * *

 

“Did you have the nightmare with the cherry blossoms again?” Seishirou asks later, eyes carefully on the road, and Subaru starts.

“What makes you say that?”

They draw to a halt at a traffic light.

“It looked as if you were having a bad dream this morning.”

Seishirou isn’t looking at him, but from his tone Subaru can imagine the look on his face. Gentle. Kind. He closes his eyes, smiling a little sadly.

“It was just a memory,” he says, “A normal dream. There wasn’t any real meaning to it.”

The traffic light turns green and, with a lurch, they begin moving again. Subaru releases the overhead handle as they stop at the next light. He has long gotten used to Seishirou’s reckless driving. The man is endlessly patient with people— Subaru, in particular— but incongruently impatient with traffic.

“Well,” Seishirou says, “You’re not exactly normal.”

He almost doesn’t hear Seishirou’s next words.

“With your spiritual abilities, it could very well have been a precognition.”

A pause as Subaru feels the blood slowly returning to his face. The numbness ebbs away as he licks his lips. A hand lands gently on his knee. He follows the length of it back up to Seishirou’s concerned face.

“Is something the matter?” the man asks, frowning, “You looked like something really upset you there.”

Subaru tries to laugh it off, but it comes out sounding painfully fake.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

Seishirou just _looks_ at him, and Subaru winces.

“Well,” he acquiesces, “I dreamt of an old classmate from elementary school. I thought that we were friends, but she eventually admitted that she didn't actually like me at all. In fact, she said she hated me because— because I wasn’t _normal_.” He laughs again. “It made me sad to remember it.”

He looks down at his lap after that, embarrassed and feeling strangely vulnerable.

Fingers squeeze soothingly over his knee.

“Subaru-kun,” Seishirou begins gently, “What is it that you think ‘normal’ is?”

“I—“ he says, “What?”

“What does ‘normal’ mean to you?”

This is probably why Seishirou and Hokuto get along like houses on fire. They both delight in asking endlessly confusing questions.

“I guess it means ‘to be like everyone else’?” he answers, and just like with Hokuto, his answer sounds more like a question than an answer.

“What does it mean to be ‘like everyone else’?”

For a good five seconds, Subaru just blinks dumbly up at Seishirou, confounded.

“I,” he stutters finally, “I don’t know.”

The admission makes him nervous. He can’t help but feel that Seishirou would be disappointed in him, like he knows Hokuto sometimes is, and the thought of that is unbearably painful. He knows that he can be terribly sensitive. When Hokuto’s particularly angry, she will threaten that she’ll eventually grow tired of his endless regard for what other people think and leave him to do whatever the hell he wants. She always apologises afterward.

The hand on his knee squeezes again, drawing him from his morose thoughts.

“Hey” Seishirou says kindly, “It’s alright.”

Overhead, the light turns green. Seishirou's gentle smile morphs into something mischievous, his eyes lighting up as he brings a hand to his mouth with a little dramatic gasp.

"Could it be?" he laments, "That Subaru-kun had fallen in love with this classmate of his as a boy?"

"Seishirou-san!" Subaru yelps, almost dizzy with the thought of it, "We— we didn't have the right words!"

"That never seems to get in the way of love triangles in _shoujo manga_ ," Seishirou points out candidly, and then pretends to wipe away a single tear, "Is this the end for me? It seems a love rival has appeared! But! I will do my best!"

A loud, drawn-out blare comes from the car behind them. Seishirou pauses. There is cursing coming in through the slightly open window from the car behind them. Seishirou winds the window down, sticks his hand out, and makes a rude hand gesture. Subaru can't help the surprised, slightly scandalised laughter. The cursing grows louder as Seishirou withdraws his hand, but Seishirou is stepping on the pedal even before Subaru hears the man getting out of his car behind them.

"Seishirou-san!" he laughs, "That was so  _mean!"_

The man just cackles maniacally.

 

* * *

 

The thing is— Seishirou is kind, and gentle, and good. He’s endlessly patient, unexpectedly funny, and so smart it sometimes makes Subaru dizzy to think about. He’s thoughtful, and yes, maybe Hokuto is right that he’s also an attractive man. Subaru can admit that he is very handsome, even though it makes him blush to do so.

He also isn’t Subaru’s soulmate.

 _People rush into things,_ Hokuto had said once, would say it again in response to that thought, _they don’t think or bother to know one another beyond the words on their wrists, and that’s pretty stupid isn’t it?_

What Hokuto doesn’t say, is that she is also a hopeless romantic. She loves the idea of it. She loves the idea that people can come together purely out of a devotion, a passion so strong it could cross the stars. She _also_ loves her soulmate too much to have that for herself, but she loves the idea of it all the same.

 _There’s a desire,_ she says, _that makes you dare defy it all._

Subaru can’t see anything like that in his life. He looks out into the future, and it’s like a long corridor stretching out into the distance in which everyday is a schedule of precise responsibilities— people to comfort, spirits to save. He looks out into the future and sees nothing that suggests anything beyond the complete and utter _normalcy_ of a perfectly peaceful existence. He’s not— he’s not _passionate._

So the thing is— Seishirou is kind, and gentle, and good— but there is the uncrossable fact of a distance that exists between what they could have been if they had matched, and what they are because they _don’t_. It’s unfair, Subaru knows, and yet nothing changes as a result of that. Because of the words on their wrists, nothing between them could ever be normal. He’s not sure he has enough passion for that.

 _and is that what a soulmate means to you,_ Hokuto’s voice echoes in his head, _is that what a soulmate means to sumeragi subaru?_

 _what does normal mean to you,_ Seishirou’s voice comes right then, _what does it mean to be ‘like everyone else’?_

Subaru pulls his quilt over his head and tries to sleep. Seishirou will grow tired of this. Seishirou will grow tired of him. Soon, he will go, and Subaru will not need to ponder these questions with the weight of a human heart beating steadily on his back.

He shuts his eyes tight.

Conversations die, but the thoughts live on.

 

* * *

 

Spring turns to summer, then wanes into fall. Seishirou does not grow tired of him. Seishirou does not leave. He stays, impermutable and unwavering in his devotion, and Subaru’s appreciation of him only grows little by little. There’s one day during the peak of autumn that Seishirou closes the clinic for a day, and drives Subaru out to see the colours of Ueno in fall.

There is no one else around that day. They stand alone together under the cover of yellowing cherry trees. The gold leaves spin down in silence around them, the quiet disturbed by no man, no breeze.

Subaru closes his eyes. Without sight, the leaves falling around him feel almost like flowers against his sleeves.

“Is something bothering you?”

“What makes you think that?” he asks softly.

“You look tired.”

And he is. He almost wants to lean against Seishirou and sleep, but he does not want to give the man the wrong impression.

A warm hand comes to rest on his head.

“Subaru-kun,” Seishirou says slowly, “Have you been having bad dreams about the cherry blossoms again?”

“No,” he says, and then, “There’s really no need to fuss, Seishirou-san. I haven’t had that dream since Tokyo Tower.”

“That’s good,” Seishirou pauses, “Have you been dreaming about your classmate then?”

He has, but he doesn’t want to worry Seishirou.

“That’s not it,” he assures the man, “I’ve just been having trouble sleeping.”

The hand on his head pets him lightly, and Subaru opens his eyes just as Seishirou leans down to peer into his face. He’s wearing that gentle smile of his, the one that Subaru can never help but return.

“Is it anything I can help with?”

Subaru opens his mouth to decline by force of habit, but then stops to consider it.

Seishirou is kind, and gentle, and good. If he’s comfortable with sharing, he always tells the truth. He doesn’t treat Subaru like a child the way that most people in his life do. Those are the things that Subaru has come to appreciate about Seishirou. Those are the reasons why he trusts Seishirou’s opinion beyond measure.

“Actually,” he says, “There’s been a question that _nee-san_ posed to me that I just can’t wrap my head around. It’s— It’s a little dumb, but I would— like to know your opinion.”

Seishirou watches him, attentive.

“What does a soulmate mean to you?”

He says it before he can regret it, but regrets it almost immediately.

He shuts his eyes tight and hides his face in his hands. When he gets home, he’s going to politely inform his sister _just_ what he thinks of that question, and then he’s not going to speak to her for a _week._

“Subaru-kun,” Seishirou voice comes to him, sounding faintly amused, “Why are you hiding?”

“I’m sorry I asked a really dumb question that everyone already knows the answer to,” he apologises, distressed, “But _nee-san_ just keeps going on about it like she wants something from me, so I asked grandmother, but she just gave me a weird look, and gave me the exact same answer that I already knew? Still, _nee-san_ keeps on _asking_ me the same question _over_ and _over_ and I’m just— I’m not sure what she _wants_ from me.”

“You’re rambling.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” Seishirou hastens to assure him, “That’s fine. It just shows that it’s something that’s been bothering you.”

Subaru looks up as Seishirou takes his glasses off and polishes it slowly.

“Firstly, Subaru-kun,” he begins, putting his glasses back on, “What exactly _is_ this ‘answer that everyone already knows’? You keep saying that, but I honestly have no clue what you’re going on about!”

Subaru blinks.

“A soulmate is a special someone meant just for us,” he parrots obediently.

Seishirou stares.

There is an unreadable look on his face.

“That is,” he says, “not inaccurate.”

Subaru waits for the other shoe to drop.

“That is also the answer you give when you’re speaking to a child.”

_Ouch._

“— or more accurately, the answer you give when you’re trying to avoid an honest conversation.”

Subaru lowers his head to look down into his lap, but strong fingers catch his chin before he can, redirecting his gaze upwards. Seishirou looks faintly amused, but he wears a gentle smile— patient, patient as always. Subaru smiles sheepishly back at him.

“There’s no real answer to that question, you know,” he says kindly, “Just like there’s no real answer to the question ‘why do bad people exist?’ or ‘why do people feel happy or sad?’ The answer is different for everyone— it’ll be different for you than it is for me— and you’ll eventually have to figure out what _your_ answer is for yourself _._ I can tell you what my answer is. I can tell you what I think. But the rest is entirely up to you.”

He pauses, smiles kindly.

“You’ve seen the movies,” he shrugs, “You’ve read the books. You know what society thinks soulmates, the one according to the words on our wrists, are. Soulmates, they think, are a pair of individuals who fit perfectly at the deepest level of their being. Like two puzzle-pieces slotting together, all their edges align. They fill all of each others’ negative spaces without ever needing to think about it or even _try_ —” He snaps his fingers. “Just like that.”

Subaru frowns.

“You don’t believe that, do you?”

“No, I don’t,” Seishirou laughs, “Do you? Do you know how many unhappy marriages exist out there? Some soulmates just don’t get along. Some soulmates just live their lives making each other so unbearably miserable that it honestly would have better that they had never met. I’m sure you’ve seen your fair share of unhappy marriages— abusive marriages even— doing the work that you do.”

And he _has._ The truth is that he’s seen more unhappy marriages than happy ones in his sixteen years of life, and that is a bit of a hard pill to swallow.

“But—“ he begins, “then what do these words—“ he lifts his right hand _“these words_ — why do we— why do we even _have_ them if we don’t match the ones who say it? _“_

“Subaru—“

“That isn’t fair,” he declares, “Why would people _lie_ about them if it’s just going to make everyone unhappy?”

“It’s not a lie, per se,” Seishirou says quickly, “Subaru-kun, I never said that soulmates don’t match. I think they do. There are marriages that work out, aren’t there?”

The bank they are sitting on overlooks a large pond with geese that will be gone by the end of fall, flown off to warmer places. On the opposite bank, a family has arrived— two women, a little boy, and a little toddler girl. The women seem to be arguing heatedly about something, the content and sound of it lost over the distance.

“Then why are there so many,” Subaru whispers, “that make people so _unhappy?”_

Seishirou pauses, smiles— rests his hand again on Subaru’s head.

“Because,” he says, “They make insincere choices.”

Subaru does not understand, but Seishirou just laughs.

“Why do soulmates stay together, Subaru-kun?”

Again with the questions. Subaru fidgets nervously with the edges of his gloves.

“Because,” he tries, “They were meant to be together?”

“According to who? According to the words they were born with?”

Subaru hesitates.

“Yes.”

“Can people leave their soulmates if they wish?”

Subaru thinks about it for a moment.

“I guess they could if they really wanted to,” he allows.

“So everyday, they could leave if they wanted to,” Seishirou clarifies, “but they make a choice— conscious or not— to stay.”

“Soulmates stay together because they choose to stay together,” Subaru ventures.

“Because they were meant to be together?”

“Because they were meant to be together,” Subaru confirms.

“That’s not a very good reason to choose something, don’t you think?”

Subaru pauses.

“Well,” he says.

“What if their soulmate makes them unhappy?” Seishirou asks, “Why do they choose to stay then?”

“Because,” Subaru answers hesitantly, “They were meant to be together. Maybe— maybe they’re unhappy now, but it’ll get better, won’t it? They were meant to be together.”

“I see,” Seishirou says, and taps his fingers consideringly over his knee. Across the pond, the boy is flying a kite in his school uniform, holding his little sister by the hand. The two women are laying out a picnic mat behind them, still arguing. They wear matching bracelets on their wrists. “And what,” Seishirou poses, “if it doesn’t get better?”

Subaru opens his mouth, thinks about it, and then closes his mouth again.

“Do they live, with empty devotion, waiting for things to get better?” Seishirou muses, “Do they begin, perhaps, to resent one another? Does the resentment begin to make them bitter, to make them angry, to make them so unbearably miserable that perhaps, it would have been better they’d never met at all?”

Subaru thinks that quietly through, still watching the bickering couple.

“That does seem to happen a lot in real life,” he comments.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Seishirou agrees, with a short laugh, “Now, Subaru-kun, when I called you this morning and asked if we could come here together, could you have just hung up on me?”

“Well,” Subaru hesitates, “ _Yes._ But I wouldn’t do that.”

“Because you consider me a friend.”

“Yes,” Subaru says, “And I respect Seishirou-san because we’re friends.”

“What if I did this?” Seishirou asks suddenly.

He grabs Subaru’s right hand, brings it to his lips, and kisses his wrist, right where his soul mark lies beneath the leather of his glove.

“Seishirou-san!” Subaru snaps, shocked, snatching his hand back, “That’s not appropriate.”

“You don’t like it,” Seishirou observes, “I’m too forward sometimes, aren’t I?”

“Well,” Subaru frowns, “Yes. Sometimes.”

“If I called you tomorrow, could you hang up on me?” Seishirou asks now, “If I called the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, could you hang up on me until one day, the calls stop coming? _Would_ you do that?”

“Of course not!”

The couple on the other side from them have begun unpacking their lunches from a picnic basket in tense silence. Beside him, Seishirou chuckles.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the man says, a little teasingly, “But why not? I’m too forward sometimes, aren’t I, and you don’t like that.”

“I don’t,” Subaru confirms, “But Seishirou-san is kind, and doesn’t speak to me like a child— I like Seishirou-san. I care about Seishirou-san. It doesn’t matter in the end if you’re sometimes too forward, because I don’t mind it if it means we can still be friends.”

Seishirou reaches out towards his face, and he flinches a little, before he realises that Seishirou is only removing a leaf from his hair. He doesn’t know why that flusters him more.

“Thank you,” Seishirou says simply, “And that’s a more sincere reason for choosing to stay friends than ‘because we were meant to be friends’, isn’t it?”

Subaru stops to process that.

“It is,” he admits, “It _is_ a better reason.”

Seishirou pats him again on the head.

“Soulmates are sometimes unhappy together,” he declares, “Because they make insincere choices. Sometimes, those choices are so insincere that they can barely be considered choices at all, and isn’t that sad? They don’t even have reason enough to choose to be friends, but they feel compelled to spend the rest of their lives together anyway.”

The leaves spin down around them in silence. Across the water, one of the women hesitates, before taking a single piece of shrimp from her own lunch, and putting it into her partner’s _bento._

“Soulmates are happy when they choose to be together,” Subaru realises, “When they have reason to choose to be together.”

Seishirou smiles.

“That’s why I don’t believe in soulmates,” he concludes, “I believe in choice. We shouldn’t _have_ to choose someone if we don’t have good enough reason to _want_ to choose them.”

Subaru considers Seishirou, who is kind, and gentle, and good, who has met his soulmate but chosen not to be with them, and who people will be unkind to because of that choice. Subaru considers Seishirou, who is kind, and gentle, and good, and who doesn’t deserve the unkindness that people would throw at him if they knew. Subaru considers Seishirou, who is kind, and gentle and good, and he thinks— _that isn’t fair._

Seishirou pats him on the head one last time, smiling, and turns to watch the gold leaves falling over still waters.

The women are holding hands.

 

* * *

 

Over dinner, Hokuto shovels a mountain of his favourite dishes onto his plate, and chatters about how skinny he is and how little he eats. She doesn’t bring up the soulmate thing. She doesn’t bring up Seishirou. Subaru knows she’s been feeling bad about getting snappy with him, and that this is her way of making up for it. That makes him feel bad too. And so, _I thought about what you said,_ is what he says in response, and— _I don’t have an answer yet, but I think I know something of what my answer_ isn’t _now._

Her gentle smile is worth every moment of confusion.

 _Sometimes,_ she says, _understanding what something_ isn’t _is the best way to begin figuring out what something_ is.

 

* * *

 

In a hospital room, he dreams again of April. The curtains are drawn and the air smells stale like death. A life support machine beeps quietly away by his side. He dreams of April, but this time, the dream isn’t his own.

His client’s name is Mitsuki, and even though he doesn’t remember her name, he remembers her words. She remembers him too. She always has.

 _I told you that I hated you because you weren’t like everyone else,_ she says wistfully, remorsefully, _but I think it was actually because you weren’t like everyone else that I liked you so much._

He leaves her to her mother. Seishirou waits for him by the van.

 _Maybe you were right that the dream was really a precognition,_ he says as he climbs into the passenger seat.

 _And,_ he adds, drawing the seatbelt over his hips, _maybe not being normal is okay too._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the family in the park, I picture that in this universe, homophobia is not a thing at all because society has developed while confronting the fact that soulmates can be of the same gender. Instead, stigma against people who choose partners other than their soulmates is like this universe's equivalent of homophobia. Prejudice is real and alive in East Asia, I don't see why it shouldn't be in this verse's East Asia as well.
> 
> Again, thank you all so much for the response to the last chapter? I really hope you guys will continue to yell in the comments because it gives me so much joy and inspiration. I do not have a beta, or anyone really to talk to about my writing, so it really thrills me to hear feedback from readers! Thank you for taking care of me ^u^


	3. part iii: where subaru is self-sacrificial and no one is happy about it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! University has been a real pain. This chapter is a little short, but I'm planning to change the chapter count again. I've been thinking of including some annexes from Hokuto's point of view. She deserves some time in the spotlight without being tacked on to Subaru. I'm thinking maybe one annex after this, and another before the last chapter. Hopefully I'll be able to get that annex up soon.

The phone rings, as it always does, on a Saturday morning. He’s sitting at the table, calligraphy brush dipped carefully in ink, tracing out precise spells on a fresh set of _ofuda._

“How is Tokyo?” his grandmother asks, as she always does, “How have you been?” and, “How has your sister been?”

Hokuto is quietly attempting to thread a needle on the other end of the table, brows knitted in concentration. She yelps, cursing, when she pricks herself. With a short grumble, she sets her sewing down crossly and stands up.

“I’m fine,” he replies, as she goes to retrieve her threader from her room, “It’s getting colder, so nee-san is busy making new clothes for the winter. Soon it’ll be spring. Hopefully we’ll have time to celebrate _hanami_ this year _._ We were too busy moving in last year to appreciate the _sakura._ ”

A chill draft blows in through the slightly open window. The wind-chime that Hokuto had made out of bottle caps tinkles gently against the quiet patter of raindrops. It’s raining outside, the weather still not cold enough to turn it to snow, and it makes him shiver with it. The damp makes the winter colder— more unforgiving, more biting.

Over the phone, his grandmother has fallen oddly silent.

He swallows nervously as a drawer grinds open in Hokuto’s room, but still, his grandmother says nothing. He begins to get the sinking feeling that maybe, _perhaps,_ he’s said something she doesn’t like.

“Grandmother,” he capitulates, “I’m sorry if I—“

“Subaru,” Grandmother cuts in suddenly. He is uncomfortably aware that she has dropped her usual honorific for him. “Keep your gloves on.”

She draws in a breath, as if to say something else, but hesitates.

A short moment later, she exhales.

“And please,” she says quietly, “Don’t take them off.”

A clatter, and then the line goes flat. He stares at the landline in disbelief. She’d _hung up_ on him.

Hokuto comes back into the room and slides an arm carefully around his waist.

“What did Grandmother say?” she asks in a sympathetic tone, because _of course_ she had been eavesdropping.

“She said…” he replies, slowly, still confused, “To keep my gloves on.”

“…Oh.”

That clearly means nothing to her either. His confusion turns surely into worry.

“Why do you think she said that?” he asks fretfully, “Did I do something wrong? Maybe she expected—“

Hokuto just sighs.

“Who knows?” she says, loud, and flippant, and exasperated to no small amount, “Who _ever_ knows what Grandmother is thinking? She’s always just mulling over those _gravely important_ thoughts of hers all on her own. Maybe she’s being her usual sensitive self over your gloves and your words. Goodness knows why, but she’s _always_ been sensitive about that.”

She turns suddenly on him, pushing a finger into his chest.

“And _you,”_ she declares, “You _have_ to stop trying to _please_ her all the time. Grandmother expects a lot of things out of you, but Grandmother is Grandmother, and Subaru is Subaru! She’s probably just in one of her _moods_ anyway.”

“I don’t think,“ he begins—

But Hokuto has already turned her attention away from him, and back to her newest project.

He looks despairingly down at the phone in his hand.

 

* * *

 

Up above, the last of crumpled black leaves strip away from naked branches, fluttering one at a time to the ground. Subaru watches as he walks the route back from his client’s house to the nearest subway station.

Soon, cherry blossoms will take the place of the withered leaves.

_Maybe I’ll finally meet my soulmate._

The thought brings him no more thrill now than it has for the whole of his sixteen years of life. Instead, he finds himself thinking of Seishirou. When he finally meets his soulmate, he’ll have to let Seishirou down, won’t he? He wonders if Seishirou will stick around after that. Unexpectedly, something clenches down in his chest. His hand flies up at the sudden pang.

 _I think I’ll miss his company,_ he admits bittersweetly.

A watch beeps on the hour, somewhere in the crowd surrounding him.

He straightens up in sudden realisation. After a quick glance down at his watch, he breaks into a run, apologising profusely as the crowd parts around him. He skids past the crowded escalator and takes the stairs down, two at a time, gasping as he sprints past the gantry.

He’s terribly, _dreadfully,_ late.

 

* * *

 

“I’m sorry!” he cries from a distance, breathless from his sprint, “The job took longer than I expected. I am _so_ sorry!”

Subaru throws himself into a deep bow as he draws even with Seishirou, who stands overlooking the penguin enclosure. But when he straightens, Seishirou is just smiling as patiently as ever.

“It’s alright,” he says, and the worst part is, he genuinely means it, “It’s my fault for insisting on meeting today, despite knowing you had a job.”

“But—“

“I’m glad,” Seishirou cuts in insistently, “That you came to see me, Subaru-kun.”

He feels heat rise suddenly to his face.

As they begin to walk, he can’t help but wonder why Seishirou puts up with… with _this._ His tardiness, his lack of commitment, his immaturity, his flightiness. _Will he grow tired of this,_ he can’t help but wonder, _will he grow tired of me?_ In light of the realisation that he’ll _miss_ Seishirou, when he inevitably leaves, he only just barely refrains from sighing morosely.

It seems like Seishirou notices, because he stops abruptly. Subaru draws to a halt beside him.

“Look, Subaru-kun,” he says, pointing, “It’s a fortune-telling booth.”

He is suddenly being dragged towards a little table in the corner.

“Oh, but I’m _really_ not supposed to—“

“Miss,” Seishirou cuts him off, “Miss, we’d like to get an affinity test done.”

“But—“

“When’s your birthday, Subaru-kun?”

“Uh, February 19, 1974,” Subaru answers automatically, too taken aback by the sudden question to remember to lie, before kicking himself for giving out his real birthdate. If Grandmother knew she’d blow a fuse.

“Your place of birth?”

“T—Tokyo,” he lies this time.

“I was born April 1, 1965, in Tokyo,” Seishirou rattles off instantly, smiling, and the woman manning the counter keys that into the machine in front of her. She hits enter, and it begins to print.

“Young love,” she sighs in the meantime, “And what a beautiful couple you make too, sir. Your soulmate is so young and so lovely.”

“Thank you!” Seishirou says sincerely, still smiling, “But we aren’t soulmates, miss.”

The woman’s eyes widen.

“Not—“ she splutters, “Not soulmates?”

“We chose this of our own accord,” Seishirou clarifies.

Subaru’s pager beeps before he can even _try_ to explain the situation to the poor clerk, who looks visibly distressed at the scandal of it all.

“This is important!” he says hurriedly, without really looking at who’s calling, and answers the call in an effort to derail the conversation from progressing further. He snags the printed affinity test report from the printer feed even as he drags Seishirou off with him. “Hello?” he says, and gets only an unintelligible garble of sound in return, “I’m sorry this phone doesn’t really allow me to hear you properly—”

“I _said,”_ his sister’s voice emerges suddenly from the static, _“You have a job!”_

It’s so loud and shrill that he trips in shock, and spends the next minute apologising profusely to passer-bys in embarrassment. Seishirou just watches on in faint amusement.

 

* * *

 

Later on, they look over the results of the affinity test together. It clinically report that they are incompatible.

Subaru can’t explain why he finds that so discomforting.

In the end, though, there is work to do, and little time for discomfort, so he pushes the thought away for another time and dials the number for the chatroom. It connects with a little _click,_ into complete silence.

“Hello?” he begins.

The rest of it does not go so well.

 

 

 

 _in fever dreams, he dreams of april. dark and silent with flower-ridden boughs that sway eerily overhead in an non-existent breeze. the branches are stained with a thick black liquid that_ drip, drip, drips, _down onto the ground. in this dream, there is a man who says his words, who reaches out for subaru with bright red hands. in this dream, this man wears seishirou’s face._

wake up, subaru-kun, _seishirou’s voice comes from far away,_ wake up, it’s all just a bad dream.

_he reaches up blindly for comfort, tears squeezing out from his closed eyes, breath coming short._

i dreamt of you, _he gasps,_ and it was awful. it was awful and i don’t want to dream anymore. it was a bad dream. it was a very bad dream. he had your face.

he falls back into unconsciousness but, at some point, wakes to strong hands keeping him upright, and hokuto’s concerned face. he does not know how he got here. he remembers a call. he remembers glass shattering. he does not know anything else.

you have a fever, _his sister says,_ drink some soup.

it’s my mother’s recipe, _seishirou’s voice says from behind him._

a spoon against his lips. the soup tastes of _dashi,_ chicken, and _flowers_ — the scent of someone’s magic. there’s magic in the soup to ease the _sakanagi_ , magic to ease the bad dreams, magic to ease the bad memories, and he obediently drinks it all. he does not think to ask whose magic it is.

the hands lower him gently back into bed.

sleep, _a man’s voice sings,_ sleep well and sleep deep.

 

 

 

When he next wakes, his fever has broken and the sky is purple with morning. His sister naps uneasily by his side, and Seishirou is nowhere to be found, probably gone to open the clinic for the day. He ventures out into his ruined living room. Amidst the broken pottery and upturned furniture, he finds a single feather, russet brown and tipped black.

There’s a magic that lingers on it— a magic that smells of _flowers._

A crash.

Hokuto comes running out of his room and slams right into him. He catches her by the arms, steadying her as her wide, frantic eyes catch onto him. She blinks up at him, once, twice, before her face crumples abruptly.

“Stupid!” she shouts, and brings her fists against his chest— _“Stupid!_ Why did you let them hurt you like that?”

“Nee-san!” he begins, shocked.

Her breath hitches suddenly.

“What must I give?” she asks helplessly, “What must I give to make you save yourself?”

She buries her face into her hands, and breaks down in heart-wrenching sobs.

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Seishirou tells him later, “You really worried Hokuto-chan there.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You just let the other two girls attack you over the phone,” Seishirou reminds him, “You didn’t even fight back.”

“If I had stopped to defend myself, the girl I was exorcising would have been in danger,” he explains, although that does not stop the guilt, “Besides, the other two girls were only amateurs, and if I had attacked them, they might really have gotten hurt.” A pause. “Not that it matters now. In the end, no one was saved.”

Seishirou puts a hand shortly on his shoulder, before he turns away to tidy the metal tools scattered across the operating table.

“That’s the Subaru-kun I know and love,” he declares calmly, “Always thinking about others before himself.”

 

* * *

 

Hokuto bounces back with terrifying ferocity. She’s ten times louder, ten times cheerier, and ten times more encouraging than usual. She’s always been like this, ever since they were children, always hated for others to see her cry. Afterwards, it’s always like she believes she can make everyone forget the incident with the sheer force of her cheer.

“You did the best you could!” she declares, “Finish up the paperwork and then forget the rest!”

“We should celebrate Subaru’s recovery!” Seishirou matches her enthusiasm, “Let’s go out somewhere!”

“Yay!” Hokuto cheers.

He allows them to sweep him off his feet and out of the door, a dual typhoon of immovable optimism.

Alone in the silence, though, the guilt returns. His failure, Hokuto’s tears, the horrifying fate of the girls he hadn’t been able to save— they turn over and over in his mind, tormenting him endlessly.

It is perhaps that, that makes him so eager to save her from her own curse when he meets her.

He meets her in the midst of a storm, in the courtyard of a temple where the corpse of a beheaded dog has been buried. She has vacant eyes and hollow cheeks, with a husband she had once loved, but is now willing to abandon in pursuit of vengeance for her murdered daughter. She has a broken heart and words that stretch grey across her wrist.

_Mama._

Her _inugami_ will kill the murderer of her daughter, but it will then return to kill her.

“A curse with such intentions will come back to harm you,” he tries to dissuade her, but she isn’t afraid to die.

“Your husband will be all alone,” he tells her, but she doesn’t seem to care.

“Your daughter wouldn’t have wanted this,” he says finally, but she just laughs.

“My daughter isn’t alive to say so. I will never hear her voice again.”

It is his guilt that makes him eager to save her, and his guilt that ultimately damns him. So he summons her, the spirit of a murdered little girl, who comes back frightened and hurt and screaming— _it hurts,_ and _i’m scared,_ and _punish him, mama_ , _make him hurt, kill him._

She can’t hear the screams of course. She does not have any true magical ability.

"What is it?" she's asking, frantic, "What is she saying?"

He makes a terrible decision there and then.

 

 

 

In the aftermath, he finds himself at Seishirou’s door, drenched and miserable.

“I lied,” he sobs, _“I lied.”_

Seishirou bundles him up in warm sheets that smell comfortingly familiar, like cigarettes, like cologne, like something inexplicably sweet— and carries him into bed like a child. His hands are gentle, so gentle, and something is shifting within him at the touch of those gentle hands, a swell of it cresting achingly beneath his ribs and quickening the flutter of his heart.

He does not know it then, but he knows it later.

This is the moment it began.

 

* * *

 

Grandmother comes to him when the last of the leaves have fallen from the trees. The wind is cold now, and the sky is grey. Winter has set its icy roots into the land. It is a desolate time, piercing and unforgiving. She comes with a job, and a vision— one that she’s travelled two hundred and eighty miles from Kyoto to tell him of.

 _Sakura,_ she says, when he asks, _I saw Subaru, swept away by the sakura._


End file.
